#BookBlitz & #Giveaway: Immurement by @normahinkens @YABoundToursPR

Derry lives in perpetual fear of capture. The sixteen-year-old and her brother survive underground on a scorched Earth replete with gangs, clones, and mysterious hoverships. When Derry's brother goes missing, her only chance of getting him back is to strike a deal with a group of murderous subversives.

As she leads her fellow preppers on a dangerous mission to save her brother, Derry discovers the world she knows is a lie. Keeping her brother alive may require trusting her enemy and opening her heart to something she never thought possible.

Immurement is the first book in the Undergrounders saga, a series of sci-fi dystopian thrillers. If you like captivating apocalyptic tales, gritty complex heroines, and twists you won’t see coming, then you’ll love this fast-paced, end-of-the-world adventure.

Travel junkie, former professional globetrotter, legend lover, idea wrangler. Norma Hinkens has lived, worked and visited her way across continents, soaking up stories along the way. Her writing is influenced by the resilient characters she met along the way; everyone has a story!

Norma grew up among vibrant storytelling traditions in her native Ireland. She's a legend-loving author who takes a fiendish delight in pushing reluctant characters over cliffs to find out what they’re made of. Epic odds, seemingly impossible missions, pasts that haunt, intrigue and misadventure. She’s happiest when wrangling provocative big picture ideas that are never black and white when you turn them inside out. It’s all about the tension in the journey.

She currently resides in California with her husband, three children and Chihuahua extraordinaire. She is the author of the YA post-apocalyptic Undergrounders Series: Immurement, Embattlement and Adjudgement.

Author Links:

Interview
with the Author

What is the hardest
part about being a writer?

Treating it like a real
job where you have to show up at a certain time and put in your hours on a
daily basis. It’s all too easy to throw
in a load of laundry, start answering emails and jump on Facebook, and before
you know it half the morning has been swallowed up with trivial pursuits. Once
you commit to the discipline of treating your writing time as sacred, you can
make real progress in terms of the quality of your craft, and the quantity of
writing you produce.

What inspired you to
write this book?

I've always been
fascinated by regimes and resistance movements, and the heroes who emerge from
atrocities. I grew up reading every concentration camp escape story I could get
my hands on. As an author, I find it intriguing to place characters in dystopian,
post-apocalyptic or sci-fi settings and watch what unfurls inside them as they
go head to head with staggering odds. After spending several summers in Idaho,
and learning more about Preppers and survivalists, the idea to plant Derry
Connolly in a bunker community of homesteaders and mountain men took seed and
The Undergrounders Series was born.

How many hours per day
do you spend writing?

I aim for about three
hours of writing time, five days a week. I sometimes do some editing later in
the day if I have extra time, but with three kids heading in different
directions most days, it gets frantic!

Have you always enjoyed
writing?

I grew up among rich
storytelling traditions in my native Ireland and it was a natural transition
for me to try my hand at writing. Irish legends are full of action, adventure,
impossible missions, and unlikely heroes, and to this day nothing captivates me
more than an epic story. Anything along the lines of The Hunger Games or The
Divergent Series is always a must read for me, only because I’m endlessly
fascinated by the capacity of heroic individuals to rise above tyranny and
change the course of history. As a child, I was always reading or scribbling
something, and I have a stack of poems, stories and half-finished projects that
document some of the big picture ideas I was wrestling with even back then.

How did you choose the
title?

There are three books
in the series and the titles track the internal growth of the main protagonist
Derry Connolly. Immurement is the state of being entombed or
confined in an enclosed space. At the outset of book one Derry is trapped in
her own self-doubt and insecurity. The bunker symbolizes the prison she yearns
to break out of in order to find her place and calling in a world with no rule
book.

Embattlementis the state of being engaged in battle or conflict. As well as
describing the obvious physical struggle against the Sweepers, the title
symbolizes the “civil war” of sorts that wages inside Derry as she rises up
against everything that has held her back.

Judgement is the act of imposing judgement. Derry
discovers a lot of harsh truths about leadership during her journey, not the
least of which is that every great leader must discern when to seek
reconciliation and when to pursue retribution. Internally, Derry must evaluate
her own moral imperfections and the darkness lurking in her own heart.

Best piece of advice
for writers trying to break in?

If you are certain
writing is where your passion and strengths intersect, don’t take your eyes off
the goal. Put your shoulder to the wheel and throw your whole heart into
mastering the craft, and taking incremental steps toward publication. Dogged
persistence will get you there in the end, and the talent you have honed along
the way will be your staying power.

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About Me

I am a blogger, an author, a reader, a big sister to 15+ kids, and I live on an island in between the Atlantic and the Caribbean, which I like to call Invisible Island.

I am not the average blogger/writer. I go through a lot to get things done, and sometimes they are not always what I think they are. I have to check, and re-check to make sure it is up to par. Dyslexia is not easy, but God is faithful.